Books by John Sutherland

The overwhelming majority of novels come, enjoy their brief moment, and go into oblivion never to return, but not The Great Gatsby: as this book shows it is one of the greatest of American novels.

A thought-provoking look at the biggest challenges facing society through the unique lens of an experienced police officer and hostage negotiator

A searingly honest memoir of the uplifting highs and crushing lows of a life spent policing on the front line

John Sutherland examines the intergenerational conflict as a new kind of 'war' in which institutional neglect and universal indifference to the old has reached aggressive, and routinely lethal, levels.

Orwell's Nose is John Sutherland's original and imaginative account of the life and work of George Orwell, exploring the 'scent narratives' that abound in Orwell's fiction and non-fiction. Orwell covered his tracks well; this illuminating and irreverent book provides a new understanding of one of our most iconic and influential writers.

This is the first-ever book length study of one of the most important and constantly innovative 19th century book and periodical publishers. The mysterious and often elusive but enormously influential Henry Colburn (c.1784 – 16 August 1855) was the pre-eminent publisher of ‘silver-fork’ novels, and of many influential new writers.Colburn’s main claim to rehabilitation are his troop of 'name' authors: Lady Morgan, Disraeli, Bulwer-Lytton, Captain Marryat, G.P.R James, Mrs. Margaret Oliphant, Mrs. Catherine Gore, Mrs. Caroline Norton, Frances Trollope, Anthony Trollope, Richard Cobbold, R. S. Surtees. Many would not have had a start in the careers they later enjoyed were it not for Colburn.This is a lively, and important new work on early 19th-century publishing and the patterns for the century which Colburn set. It sketches intantalizing outlines the Regency, early nineteenth-century and Victorian book trades – and the consequences of Colburn’s impact on those worlds. In addition, the work centres on Colburn’s most celebrated authors. The book – which is well illustrated - contains the first catalogue of Colburn’s publications.Thus far, literary and publishing history have drawn a formidable charge sheet against Henry Colburn. In personal pedigree he is slandered as a ‘guttersnipe’, or a ‘royal bastard’. In Disraeli’s pungent description he was a publishing ‘bawd’, engaged in wholesale literary prostitution. A very bad thing. And yet this publishing Barabbas can be argued to have been innovative and a force for constructive change in the rapidly evolving book trade and---paradoxically---a man of taste.Various rumours circulated that he was either a bastard of the Duke of York or of Lord Landsdowne. Date uncertain. He liked to weave illustrious (typically mendacious) pedigrees for himself as much as for his dubiously aristocratic purveyors of silver forkery.What, precisely, did Colburn do that should raise his reputation and make us see him as a good thing? In the largest sense he demonstrated, by example and practice, the need for consolidation between hitherto dismembered arms of the London book world. Beginning his career at apprentice level in the London West End circulating-library business he went on, having learned at the counter what the customer wanted, to become the undisputed market leader in the publication of three-volume novels and (sub-Murray) travel books.The three-decker went on to become the foundation-stone of the ‘Leviathan’ library system (Mudie’s and Smith’s) and created a seventy-year stability in the publishing, distribution and reception of English fiction. In 1814 Colburn founded the New Monthly Magazine. In 1817, he set up England’s first serious weekly review, the Literary Gazette. In 1828 he helped found the Athenaeum (distant parent of today's New Statesman). His behaviour, as a magazine proprietor and editor at large was typically outrageous. But the link he forged between higher journalism and literature was momentous.

For all her faults, Jane Austen's Emma is one of literature's most fascinating heroines. She is so clever - and funny - that it is almost impossible, as this short guide shows, not to be won over by her.

How much heavier was Thackeray's brain than Walt Whitman's? Which novels do American soldiers read? When did cigarettes start making an appearance in English literature? And is there any link between asthma and literary genius? This title contemplates the import of questions such as these, and attempts a few answers in a series of essays.

With over 900 biographical entries, more than 600 novels synopsized, and a wealth of background material on the publishers, reviewers and readers of the age the Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction is the fullest account of the period's fiction ever published.

'What spectacle is more august than that of a great king in exile? Who is more worthy of respect than a brave man in misfortune?' When "e;Henry Esmond"e; appeared in 1852, noted writers and critics of the time acclaimed it as the best historical novel ever written. Set in the reign of Queen Anne, the story follows the troubled progress of a gentleman and an officer in Marlborough's army, as he painfully wrestles with an emotional allegiance to the old Tory-Catholic England until, disillusioned, he comes to terms of a kind with the Whiggish-Protestant future. This change also entails a very uncomfortable switch in his affections. The love story of Henry Esmond is charged with sombre, unconscious emotions, yet is skilfully embedded into historical events which are convincing but never too prominent.

aeo A major account of Scotta s life and work which removes many layers of the myth. aeo Original contribution to our knowledge of Scotta s disastrous business affairs. aeo An accessible yet thorough account of a major cultural figure in the evolution of the novel.